


Walking Ordinary Ground

by cofax



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-12
Updated: 2010-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:18:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert Rothman was a hero.  Post-ep for "The First Ones".   Posted July 2004.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking Ordinary Ground

Daniel stands on the front step of a bungalow only six blocks from his own apartment. The paint is dull green and peeling, the yard mostly crabgrass and a hedge badly in need of trimming.

 

It was his job, Daniel said. Jack pulled rank, one of the few times he's tried that, but Daniel resisted, and, oddly enough, Hammond backed him up.

 

\--He was my direct report. It's the least I can do for him.

 

\--Yeah, but Daniel, you haven't--

 

\--Jack, they died _looking for me_.

 

Silence. And then:

 

\--Just don't tell them--

 

\--I know, Jack. After four years, he knows exactly how much he's allowed to say.

 

The bell doesn't appear to work. Daniel gives the door a few uncertain raps. He still has scratches and scabs all over his hands, sores around his wrists from Chaka's rope. He stares at them blankly until the door is yanked open.

 

\--Yeah?

 

Tall, blond, skinny, looks like a graduate student. Could be Daniel himself five years ago. He wears sweatpants and a Broncos shirt with a red stain on the stomach.

 

\--My, uh, I'm Daniel Jackson. I'm--I was Robert's boss. Daniel looks away and then back to the young man in the doorway. The least he can do is face him.

 

\--Robert's. Oh. Um, come in. I'm Andy. Andy shuffles backwards into the dim hallway, and Daniel follows.

 

Andy turns on a light and shows Daniel to the dining room, where a large mahogany table is piled with bills, books, and an empty pizza box. The curtains are drawn. The house feels dusty, the air dead: how much time did Rothman really spend here, Daniel wonders.

 

\--So it's true. Andy's voice reminds Daniel of why he's here, and he turns around in the doorway uncertainly.

 

\--Yes, uh, yes. It is.

 

Andy drops into a chair. Daniel hovers, uncertain, as Andy leans over the table, shaking hands covering his face. It's becoming evident that Andy and Robert might not have been _just_ roommates.

 

\--Is there anything I can do? I just--I wanted to say how--

 

\--No. Andy's voice is muffled by his hands, but he scrubs them over his face and sits up. --There's nothing you can do. You all have done enough, haven't you? The resentment is unmistakable.

 

Daniel can't blame him. He would have been informed impersonally: a phone call, an email. Maybe not even directly, unless Robert had listed him as his next-of-kin; and how shameful is it that Daniel didn't even think to check, didn't even _know_ this about Robert?

 

\--He tried to save my life.

 

It's all Daniel can offer Andy. Truth, which is more than the official story provided. Robert wasn't a hero, but he tried. There weren't any heroes on P3X-888.

 

The cover story for SG-11's loss is an accident involving unexploded ordinance at a site in the Nevada desert. Daniel read the report before leaving the mountain, but the careful phrases he's memorized all slip away from him as he watches Andy in his grief.

 

\--Robert? You're kidding. Andy wipes his eyes, but a little of the anger fades. He sits a little straighter, looking up at Daniel. The hair has fallen out of his ponytail and swings against his shoulders. He might even be younger than Daniel thought.

 

\--Yeah. I, uh. It wasn't his job, but he really tried.

 

Something that's almost a smile ghosts across Andy's face. --He was good at that. Trying to help.

 

Daniel shrugs wordlessly, and can't help but think of Robert's frustration when faced with the crystal skull. It's a story Robert couldn't have shared with Andy. What could they have talked about, after all? Rothman was officially a field archaeologist working at military installations all over the west, inventorying prehistoric Indian villages and relics. But even the briefest glimpse at Rothman's CV would have given it away: he was a classicist to his bones. There's no way Andy's an archaeologist, or he would have known.

 

\--Well, I--Daniel waves a hand aimlessly toward the door. --I should get out of your way.

 

He needs to get away. The symbiote blood smeared across Daniel's face was cold, and his field jacket still has bloodstains on it. It was so close. Sam said, later, that it was Jack who killed Rothman. The P-90 would have shuddered in Jack's hands, bullets tearing the air, shredding Robert's organs and the parasite inside him.

 

\--Please, wait. Andy stands up and reaches toward him, then drops his hand again. --Can you tell me when we'll . . . I need to bury him. His sister will be here tomorrow.

 

Daniel winces. He wasn't even there when Robert died, never saw his body. They had stopped at the graves on the trip back to the gate, and Daniel stood there for a long moment, hands in his pockets, head down. He couldn't come up with any words for Rothman or Hawkins. They were dead, and all he could feel was the exhaustion weighing him down, the grinding ache from three days of constant fear and little sleep. After a few minutes, Jack tapped him on the shoulder and nodded him onwards.

 

\--We can't. The site is contaminated; none of the bodies will be--recovered.

 

Andy shakes his head. --I don't. There were more?

 

They told him nothing, did they? Daniel doesn't know whether to blame Robert's family, or Hammond.

 

\--Seven men died in the accident.

 

\--Oh, my god.

 

Daniel turns away from Andy's shock. The bookshelf built into the wall of the dining room is stacked with Greek and Latin texts. On the shelf above is a fragment of marble and a chipped redware bowl. Rothman was always happiest when their research involved the Greeks and Romans: he could chatter for hours about Hellenic mythology.

 

\--The rest of them were military. Robert wasn't supposed to be at risk. He was a civilian, and the site had been cleared.

 

There's a grating scrape of wood on wood, and Daniel turns to see Andy's shoved the chair halfway across the floor. His face is flushed.

 

\--I just. How can you _stand_ there, and tell me this? As if it's nothing? Robert's _dead_!

 

Daniel can't say, _I know a lot of dead people. What's one more?_ He can't say, _Better him than me._ He can't say, _Robert should have known better than to go. He wasn't qualified for search-and-rescue._

 

Rothman was trapped in his own body, screaming for help, and none of them knew. None of them helped him. No one knew.

 

\--I'm truly sorry.

 

If he says it often enough, maybe he'll feel something other than this cold and shameful relief.

 

 

END

 

_So I will not name my heroes  
And I'll keep my distance when I can  
But if time should bend or break them  
I hope I won't forsake them  
If by chance they need a friend  
Need to walk on ordinary ground_  
\-- John Gorka, _Heroes_


End file.
